state of eastern India. It is bounded by Nepal to the north and by the Indian states of West Bengal to the northeast and Uttar Pradesh to the west. In November 2000 the new state of Jharkhand was created from Bihar’s southern provinces and now forms the state’s southern and southeastern bor...

early type of Buddhist monastery consisting of an open court surrounded by open cells accessible through an entrance porch. The viharas in India were originally constructed to shelter the monks during the rainy season, when it became difficult for them to lead the wanderer’s life. They took on a sacred character when small stupas (housing sacred relics)...

in Mahāyāna Buddhism, the stages of spiritual progress of the bodhisattva, or one who, though capable of enlightenment, delays his buddhahood in order to work for the salvation of others. The stages (which are also termed vihāras, “stations”) appear as 7, 10, and 13 in various texts, but the scheme that is most commonly agreed upon is t...

town, south-central Punjab province, Pakistan. The town lies on a flat alluvial plain bordered by the Sutlej River on the southeast. It is a market and processing centre for cotton and oilseeds. Wheat, rice, sugarcane, and vegetables are also grown nearby, and there are rice and flour mills in the area. Vihāri lies on the main road between Multān and Lahore. Pop. (...

stringed musical instrument that in Spanish Renaissance art music held the popularity accorded the lute elsewhere in Europe. Built like a large guitar, it had six, sometimes seven, double courses of strings tuned like the lute: G–c–f–a–d′–g′. (The guitar then had four double courses.)...

stringed musical instrument that in Spanish Renaissance art music held the popularity accorded the lute elsewhere in Europe. Built like a large guitar, it had six, sometimes seven, double courses of strings tuned like the lute: G–c–f–a–d′–g′. (The guitar then had four double courses.)...

...photographer with Time magazine. He was a member of Magnum photography cooperative from 1986 to 2001, when he became one of the founding members of the photo agency VII, named for the number of its founding members....

...reduced to three by the reign of his successor, Tiberius, and to one by the time of Galba’s accession. From Vespasian’s time to the end of the empire, the legionary force in Spain was limited to the VII Gemina Felix legion, stationed at Legio (León) in the north. Both that legion and the other auxiliary units in Spain seem to have been recruited increasingly from the penins...

city, Leningrad oblast (region), northwestern Russia. The city stands at the head of Vyborg Bay of the Gulf of Finland, 70 miles (113 km) northwest of St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad). First settled in the 12th century, Vyborg was built as a fortress in 1293 by the Swedes after they had captured Karelia. In 1710 ...

...most advanced architect in Finland and brought him worldwide recognition as well. These were the Turun Sanomat Building (newspaper office) in Turku, the tuberculosis sanatorium at Paimio, and the Municipal Library at Viipuri (now Vyborg, Russia). His plans for the last two were chosen in a competition, a common practice with public buildings in Finland. Both the office building and the......

The short reigns of Devaraya’s two sons, Ramcandra and Vijaya, were disastrous. In a war against the Bahmanīs, many temples were destroyed, and Vijaya was forced to pay a huge indemnity. A combined invasion by the king of Orissa and the Velamas of Andhra resulted in the loss of the territories newly gained in the partition of the Reddi kingdom of Kondavidu. Vijaya’s son and su...

the last Indianized kingdom in Indonesia; based in eastern Java, it existed between the 13th and 16th centuries. The founder of the empire was Vijaya, a prince of Singhasāri (q.v.), who escaped when Jayakatwang, the ruler of Kaḍiri, seized the palace. In 1292 Mongol troops came to Java to avenge an insult to the emperor of China, Kublai Khan, by Kertanagara, the king of......

According to the Sinhalese tradition, as recorded in the Mahavamsa, the first Indian settlers on Sri Lanka were Prince Vijaya and his 700 followers, who landed on the west coast near Puttalam (5th century bce). They had been banished for misconduct from the kingdom of Sinhapura in northern India by Vijaya’s father, King Sinhabahu, who put them all in a ship and drove th...

...Celebrations and worship begin on Sasthi, the sixth day. During the following three days, the goddess is worshipped in her various forms as Durga, Lakshmi, and Sarasvati. The celebrations end with Vijaya Dashami (“Tenth Day of Victory” ), when, amid loud chants and drumbeats, idols are carried in huge processions to local rivers, where they are immersed. That custom is symbolic of...

...Primarily through his efforts, Theravāda Buddhism became the dominant religion of Myanmar and the inspiration for its culture and civilization. He maintained diplomatic relations with King Vijayabāhu of Ceylon, who in 1071 requested the assistance of Burmese monks to help revive the Buddhist faith. The Ceylonese king sent Anawrahta a replica of the Buddha’s tooth relic, whi...

in Hinduism, holiday marking the triumph of Rama, an avatar of Vishnu, over the 10-headed demon king Ravana, who abducted Rama’s wife, Sita. The festival’s name is derived from the Sanskrit words dasha (“ten”) and ...

Indian cartoonist, pioneering novelist and short-story writer, and a leading figure in Malayalam literature. In addition to cartoons and journalistic articles on such subjects as politics and the environment, he produced several novels and a number of short stories....

Indian cartoonist, pioneering novelist and short-story writer, and a leading figure in Malayalam literature. In addition to cartoons and journalistic articles on such subjects as politics and the environment, he produced several novels and a number of short stories....

great ruined city in southern India and also the name of the empire ruled first from that city and later from Penukonda (in Anantapur district, Andhra Pradesh) between 1336 and about 1614. The site of the city, on the Tungabhadra River, is now partly occupied by the village of Hampi in eastern Karnataka state....

city, east-central Andhra Pradesh state, southern India, lying on the Krishna River. The city is a major road and rail junction as well as a centre for Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimages. Noted sites include the Kanaka Durga temple, the Hazarat Bal mosque, and Gandhi Hill, where a statue of Mahatma Gandhi (erected in 1968) ove...

...that literature should educate the public and promote progressive social and political struggles. From 1874 until his death, he edited and contributed to the critical journal Vijenac (“The Wreath”), publishing many short stories, poems, and essays. His novels include Seljačka buna (1877; “Peasants’ Revolt...

in Buddhist philosophy, one of the five skandhas, or aggregates, that constitute all that exists. Thought (vijñāna/viññāṇa) is the psychic process that results from other psychological phenomena. The simplest form is knowledge through any of the senses, particularly through the mind (citta), which is regarded as the coordin...

...by Vachaspati (9th century). The Samkhya-sutras are a much later work (c. 14th century) on which Aniruddha (15th century) wrote a vritti and Vijnanabhikshu (16th century) wrote the Samkhya-pravachana-bhashya (“Commentary on the Samkhya Doctrine”). Among independent works, mention may be made of......

...with the other great Mahayana system, Madhyamika, where the emphasis is on logical analysis and dialectic. Its central doctrine, however, is that only consciousness (vijnanamatra; hence the name Vijnanavada) is real and that eternal things do not exist. Thought or mind is the ultimate reality, and nothing exists outside the mind, according to this......

an influential idealistic school of Mahayana Buddhism. Yogachara attacked both the complete realism of Theravada Buddhism and the provisional practical realism of the Madhyamika school of Mahayana Buddhism. The name of the school is derived from the title of an important 4th- or 5th-century text of the school, the Yo...

an influential idealistic school of Mahayana Buddhism. Yogachara attacked both the complete realism of Theravada Buddhism and the provisional practical realism of the Madhyamika school of Mahayana Buddhism. The name of the school is derived from the title of an important 4th- or 5th-century text of the school, the Yo...

(Sanskrit: “manifest activity”), in Buddhist philosophy, a kind of action that manifests itself outside of the actor and is capable of being recognized by others. Of the three kinds of action (i.e., those produced by the body, mouth, and mind) usually admitted in Buddhism, bodily ones and verbal ones are classified as vijñapti-karman. But mind activity (i.e.,...

Converted by his brother Asanga to the Yogachara, Vasubandhu wrote the Vijnapti-matrata-siddhi (“Establishment of the Thesis of Cognitions—Only”), in which he defended the thesis that the supposedly external objects are merely mental conceptions. Yogachara idealism is a logical development of Sautrantika representationism: the conception of a merely inferred......

an influential idealistic school of Mahayana Buddhism. Yogachara attacked both the complete realism of Theravada Buddhism and the provisional practical realism of the Madhyamika school of Mahayana Buddhism. The name of the school is derived from the title of an important 4th- or 5th-century text of the school, the Yo...

...how a skillful application of postmodernist strategies could lead to an exciting, multidimensional portrait of not just an individual but an entire epoch. Three very different women authors are Bjørg Vik, a short-story writer who portrayed, from a feminist viewpoint, the lives of contemporary women in their efforts to cope with societal demands, new freedoms, and their own emotional......

An important contribution to epistemology was made by the writers on the Yoga: this concerns the key notion of vikalpa, which stands for mental states referring to pseudo-objects posited only by words. Such mental states are neither “valid” nor “invalid” and are said to be unavoidable accompaniments of one’s use of language....

...revival in Paris in June 1894 at a conference on international sport attended by 79 delegates representing 49 organizations from 9 countries. Coubertin himself wrote that, except for his coworkers Dimítrios Vikélas of Greece, who was to be the first president of the International Olympic Committee, and Professor William M. Sloane of the United States, from the College of New......

...Perelik Peak; the Rila Mountains, rising to 9,596 feet (2,925 metres) at Musala Peak, which is the highest point in the country and indeed in the whole Balkan Peninsula; the Pirin Mountains, with Vikhren Peak reaching 9,560 feet; and a frontier range known as the Belasitsa Mountains. These majestic ranges discharge meltwater from montane snowfields throughout the summer, and their sharp......

either of two robotic U.S. spacecraft launched by NASA for extended study of the planet Mars. The Viking project was the first planetary exploration mission to transmit pictures from the Martian surface....

member of the Scandinavian seafaring warriors who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the 9th to the 11th century and whose disruptive influence profoundly affected European history. These pagan Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish warriors were probably prompted to undertake their raids by a combination of factors ranging from overpopulation at home to t...

...Pagan Way, a nature religion centred on goddess worship and the seasons; the Reformed Druids of North America; the Church of the Eternal Source, which has revived ancient Egyptian religion; and the Viking Brotherhood, which celebrates Norse rites. Beginning in the late 1970s, some feminists, open to feminine personifications of the deity, became interested in witchcraft and Neo-Paganism....

type of sail-and-oar vessel that predominated in northern European waters for more than 1,500 years and played an important role in history. Ranging from 45 to 75 feet (14 to 23 metres) in length, clinker-built (with overlapped planks), and carrying a single square sail, the longship was exceptionally sturdy in heavy seas. Its ancestor was, doubtless, the dugout, and the longship remained double-e...

highly popular Jamaican vocal ensemble of the 1960s and ’70s, one of the great reggae groups. The members were Toots Hibbert (original name Frederick Hibbert; b. 1946Maypen, Jamaica), Nathaniel (“Jerry”) Matthias (or McCarthy;...

The Vikrama era (58 bc) is said in the Jain book Kālakācāryakathā to have been founded after a victory of King Vikramāditya over the Śaka. But some scholars credit the Scytho-Parthian ruler Azes with the foundation of this era. It is sometimes called the Mālava era because Vikramāditya ruled over the M...

powerful emperor (reigned c. 380–c. 415 ce) of northern India. He was the son of Samudra Gupta and grandson of Chandra Gupta I. During his reign, art, architecture, and sculpture flourished, and the cultural development of ancient India reached its climax....

...model, the system also encouraged parochial loyalties and local cultural interests. One manifestation of this local involvement was a sudden spurt of historical literature such as Bilhana’s Vikramankadevacarita, the life of the Calukya king Vikramaditya VI, and Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, a history of Kashmir....

...Ranna, as well as by Nāgavarma I, a 10th-century Kannada grammarian. Pampa was the ādikavi (“first of poets”), having attained that stature with two great epics: Vikramārjuna Vijaya and Ādipurāṇa. The former is a rendering of the Mahābhārata, with the hero, Arjuna, identified with the poet’s...

drama by Kalidasa written in the 5th century ce. The subject of the play is the love of a mortal for a divine maiden. The play contains a well-known “mad scene” (Act IV) in which the king, grief-stricken, wanders through a lovely forest apostrophizing various flowers and trees as though they were his love....

...of terraced plateaus (primarily of slates, sandstones, and limestones) that rise in places into rounded summits and are intersected by narrow, deep valleys. The Brocken (3,747 feet [1,142 m]) and Viktorshöhe (1,909 feet [582 m]) are of granite. The northwestern and higher third of the highland is known as the Oberharz; the southeastern and more extensive part is the Unterharz. The......

capital and largest town of the republic of Vanuatu, southwestern Pacific Ocean. Port-Vila is located on Mélé Bay, on the southwest coast of Éfaté, and is the commercial centre of the island group. Although the town is French in appearance, the population is multinational, including ni-Vanuatu, British, French, Ch...

in Slavic mythology, lake-dwelling soul of a child who died unbaptized or of a virgin who was drowned (whether accidentally or purposely). Slavs of different areas have assigned different personalities to the rusalki. Around the Danube River, where they are called vile (singular vila), rusalki are beautiful, charming girls, dressed always in light robes of mist, singing...

city, in the highlands of north-central São Paulo estado (state) Brazil, lying on the São Domingos River at 1,630 feet (497 metres) above sea level. Originally called Vila Adolfo, the settlement was given town status in 1909 and was made the seat of a municipality in 1917. Coffee and sugarcane are the princip...

city, east-central Minas Gerais estado (state), southeastern Brazil. It is located on the Carmo River in the Doce River basin at 2,287 feet (697 metres) above sea level. Formerly known as Vila de Albuquerque and Vila de Carmo, the settlement was made a seat of a municipality in 1711 and attained city sta...

city, east-central Minas Gerais estado (state), southeastern Brazil. It is located on the Carmo River in the Doce River basin at 2,287 feet (697 metres) above sea level. Formerly known as Vila de Albuquerque and Vila de Carmo, the settlement was made a seat of a municipality in 1711 and attained city sta...

city, eastern São Paulo estado (state), Brazil. It lies along the Paraíba do Sul River at 2,110 feet (643 metres) above sea level. Known successively as Vila Nova de São José, Vila de São José do Sul, and Vila de São José do Paraíba, the colonial settlement developed aroun...

city, eastern São Paulo estado (state), Brazil. It lies along the Paraíba do Sul River at 2,110 feet (643 metres) above sea level. Known successively as Vila Nova de São José, Vila de São José do Sul, and Vila de São José do Paraíba, the colonial settlement developed aroun...

town, central Mozambique. Located on the Chinde River, a distributary channel of the Zambezi delta, it exports sugar and copra and is an important fishing centre. Important originally as a British free-trade area (1891) for Northern Rhodesian exports and coastal traffic, Chinde declined after the successful development of Beira’s rail facilities (about 1907). Pop. (latest...

The island’s capital, Vila do Porto, founded in the 1430s, is the oldest town in the Azores; it has a 15th-century parish church and a commemorative stela, dedicated in 1432 to “the discoverers.” Christopher Columbus, returning from his first voyage to America in 1493, called at what is now the hamlet of Anjos on the northern coast....

city, in the highlands of southern São Paulo estado (state), Brazil. It lies at 2,460 feet (750 metres) above sea level along the Jundiaí River. Formerly called Porta do Sertão, Mato Grosso de Jundiaí, and Vila Formosa de Nossa Senhora do Destêrro de Jundiaí, it was given town stat...

city, in the highlands of northeastern São Paulo estado (state), southern Brazil. It lies at 3,314 feet (1,010 metres) above sea level. Known variously as Vila Franca del Rei and Vila Franca do Imperador, it was given town status in 1824 and was made the seat of a municipality in 1856. The city has one of the larges...

city, in the highlands of northeastern São Paulo estado (state), southern Brazil. It lies at 3,314 feet (1,010 metres) above sea level. Known variously as Vila Franca del Rei and Vila Franca do Imperador, it was given town status in 1824 and was made the seat of a municipality in 1856. The city has one of the larges...

city, eastern São Paulo estado (state), Brazil. It lies along the Paraíba do Sul River at 2,110 feet (643 metres) above sea level. Known successively as Vila Nova de São José, Vila de São José do Sul, and Vila de São José do Paraíba, the colonial settlement developed aroun...

city, south-central Mozambique. Centrally located, it is also a commercial and industrial centre. The Chicamba Real hydroelectric-power plant on the nearby Revuè River provides power for the city’s cotton, steel, and saw mills and for the manufacture of coarse textiles and processing of other agricultural and mineral products. Chimoio is connected by road and railw...

city, southeastern Minas Gerais estado (state), Brazil. It occupies a hilly site on the lower slopes of the Oro Prêto Mountains, a spur of the Espinhaço Mountains, at 3,481 feet (1,061 metres) above sea level in the Doce River drainage basin....

town (founded 1890), central Angola. It is the chief trade and market centre of the fertile Bié Plateau and processes rice and other grains, coffee, meat, and beeswax. The town suffered much damage in the civil war following Angola’s independence in 1975 and was almost totally destroyed in the fighting following multiparty elections in 1992 and again in 1998. The o...

coastal city, east-central Espírito Santo estado (state), eastern Brazil. It lies along Espírito Santo Bay just southeast of Vitória, the state capital, and forms part of the Greater Vitória metropolitan area....

city, Castellón provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Valencia, eastern Spain. The city is northeast of Valencia city on the Mijares River, just southwest of Castellón de la Plana (Castelló de la Pla...

city, Castellón provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Valencia, eastern Spain. The city is northeast of Valencia city on the Mijares River, just southwest of Castellón de la Plana (Castelló de la Pla...

city, Pontevedra provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Galicia, northwestern Spain. The city is a seaport just northwest of Pontevedra city, on the Arousa estuary. Fishing and boatbuilding are the chief industries, and expor...

city, Pontevedra provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Galicia, northwestern Spain. The city is a seaport just northwest of Pontevedra city, on the Arousa estuary. Fishing and boatbuilding are the chief industries, and expor...

town, Lugo provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Galicia, northwestern Spain. The town is on the left bank of the Ladra River, northwest of Lugo city. It has the remains of a 14th-century castle. Situated in a fertile agricu...

The central figure in Montevideo was Julio Vilamajó, who designed the Faculty of Engineering there in 1937. The spatial sequences on the ground floor, the articulation of the different volumes, and the complex functions of the building are typical of his architecture. His concern for an honesty of expression through the correct use of materials and structure is evident in all his work......

city, Barcelona provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Catalonia, northeastern Spain, southwest of Barcelona. The city was chartered by James I of Aragon in 1274. It has a museum founded by the Catalan writer-politician V...

...Beuchat that was propelled by a rubber elastic band. Other guns were designed that used gunpowder, carbon dioxide, or compressed air to propel the spear; one of the latter type, invented in 1956 by Juan Vilarrubis of Spain, became popular because of its accuracy, power, and simplicity of operation....

...The first of these was Jules Ferrette, a former Roman Catholic priest who was consecrated in 1866 by the Jacobite bishop of Homs (Emesa) in Syria; he worked in England and the United States. Joseph René Vilatte, a lapsed French Catholic who had worked in the Protestant Episcopal Church in Wisconsin, was consecrated in 1892 by the Metropolitan of the Independent Catholic Church of......

Bingham was a member of the history faculty at Yale University from 1909 until 1924. In July 1911 he directed a Yale archaeological expedition whose main objective was to find Vilcabamba (Vilcapampa), which was the “lost city of the Incas,” the secret mountain stronghold used during the 16th-century rebellion against Spanish rule. Prospects for locating it were poor: not even the......

small range of the Andes Mountains in south-central Peru, extending about 160 miles (260 km) northwestward from the city of Cuzco. The range, marked by the erosive action of rivers that have cut deep canyons, rises to 20,574 feet (6,271 metres) at Mount Salccantay (Salcantay, or Sarkantay). The most atypical of the range’s peaks is Pumasillo (“Puma’s Claw”), at 19,915 f...

...from Bolivia ends in the rough mountain mass of the Vilcanota Knot at latitude 15° S. From this knot (nudo), two lofty and narrow chains emerge northward, the Cordilleras de Carabaya and Vilcanota, separated by a deep gorge; a third range, the Cordillera de Vilcabamba, appears to the west of these and northwest of the city of Cuzco. The three ranges are products of erosive action ...

As the Andes enter Peru, the Cordillera Occidental runs parallel to the coast, while the Cordillera Real from Bolivia ends in the rough mountain mass of the Vilcanota Knot at latitude 15° S. From this knot (nudo), two lofty and narrow chains emerge northward, the Cordilleras de Carabaya and Vilcanota, separated by a deep gorge; a third range, the Cordillera de Vilcabamba, appears to....

Bingham was a member of the history faculty at Yale University from 1909 until 1924. In July 1911 he directed a Yale archaeological expedition whose main objective was to find Vilcabamba (Vilcapampa), which was the “lost city of the Incas,” the secret mountain stronghold used during the 16th-century rebellion against Spanish rule. Prospects for locating it were poor: not even the......

judeţ (county), south-central Romania. The Transylvanian Alps (Southern Carpathians) and the sub-Carpathians rise above settlement areas in the valleys, and the Olt and Cerna rivers drain southward through the county. Râmnicu Vâlcea (the county capital), Băbeni, and Berzoi are timber production centres. Chemical factories ope...

...criticism of Liiv’s Kümme lugu (1893; “Ten Tales”) and in Ernst Peterson’s criticism of social injustice, Boils (1899–1901). An outstanding realist novelist was Eduard Vilde, who wrote a historical trilogy attacking the Balto-Germanic feudal system and in Mäeküla piimamees (1916; “The Dairyman of Mäek...

in Slavic mythology, lake-dwelling soul of a child who died unbaptized or of a virgin who was drowned (whether accidentally or purposely). Slavs of different areas have assigned different personalities to the rusalki. Around the Danube River, where they are called vile (singular vila), rusalki are beautiful, charming girls, dressed always in light robes of mist, singing...

satiric novel by Evelyn Waugh, published in 1930. Set in England between the wars, the novel examines the frenetic but empty lives of the Bright Young Things, young people who indulge in constant party-going, heavy drinking, and promiscuous sex. At the novel’s end, the realities of the world intrude, with Adam Fenwick-Symes, the protagonist, serving on a battlefield at th...